Friday, January 11, 2008

Hillary Clinton's tears moved me. They did. I watched her lilting performance and felt bad for her. She cares. She has a serious vision for the country. She's a working woman busting her butt in a male-dominated industry.

My empathy lasted for all of 20 seconds. Then I wondered: Who coached her? Wow, they must be good. She's crying because she's seeing her ambitions thwarted. Hmmmm, the reporters are eating it up.

Given the nature of this election and the nature of our Oprah-fied culture, I'd say that we should expect more Hillary histrionics. They'll happen. Rest assured.

I don't like tears from public servants. I didn't like them from George Bush or Rudy Giuliani and I don't like them from Hillary Clinton. I like my public servants stoic, QE2 style. But that isn't what works.

Emotional manipulation works and emotional manipulation is what we'll get--whether it's Obama earnestly opining about change or Hillary sniffling because no one gets her grand vision (for herself).

And I'm just writing this because everyone seems to be writing on it. Let's face it, the press overplayed their hands. All the Obamisms clouded their vision about the Democratic field. The press is still blind--they see what they want to see and report what they want you to see. And if Hillary comes back around to being on top, they'll relearn to love her because she'll be the only anecdote to the poison they perceive on the right.

4 comments:

I like nothing about Hillary, but her tears actually worked on me. I think it was the tremor in her voice. It sounded real. I would never vote for her, but I did think of her as a real person for a few minutes.